ABSTRACT
The stated subject matter of psychology has changed historically. Psychology became the science of cognitive processes and the mainstream rejected behavior as its subject matter. Work aimed at explicating the general nature of psychological phenomena, if successful, would end in the identification of a strategic problem in psychology. Philosophic problems and techniques have an indispensable and unavoidable place in scientific inquiry. Philosophic work consists of the reasoning used in such activities as stating research problems precisely, checking the internal consistency of formulations, finding contradictions and ambiguities, clarifying confusions, explicating unspoken assumptions, and deducing new statements from old ones. Psychologists not only need to conduct philosophic work aimed at clarifying the general nature of their special domain, but also to construct a professional environment in which such work will flourish. More fundamentally, most psychologists seem unconcerned about finding a common outlook on a common domain that can provide an integrative framework for psychological inquiry.
